Yom-Tov Lipmann Heller

[1] As a teenager Heller was sent to Friedberg, near Wallerstein, where he studied in the Yeshiva of Rabbi Jacob Günzburg.

In 1597, when Heller was scarcely 18 years old, he received a Semicha (appointment) as a Dayan (rabbinic judge) in that city.

In the summer of 1629, Heller was arrested at the order of the imperial court of Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II.

A commission headed by Chief Rabbi Heller unanimously voted to tax each Jewish family in Prague.

The committee met with representatives of the merchants' association to explain the sensitive situation facing the Jewish community of Prague.

Rabbi Heller was associated with the wealthy leader of the Prague community at that time, Jacob Bassevi.

Heller was married to Rachel, a daughter of a wealthy Prague merchant, Aaron Moses Ashkenazi (Munk).

It is possible but unclear whether the addition of Oettingen and Wallerstein to their names means his ancestors had connections by marriage with the noble families of the House of Oettingen-Wallerstein.

Sons whom he mentions in his works, were: Moses of Prague, Samuel of Nemirow (now Nemirov, Ukraine), Abraham of Lublin (now in Poland), and Leb of Brest-Litovsk (now Brest, Belarus).

1790), religious scholar, poet, writer whose grandson, Arnold Edler von Porada Rapoport (b.

In commemoration of his imprisonment and his release from prison, Heller established two special days of remembrance for his family and descendants.

Lipschitz and Dr. Neil Rosenstein under the title, The Feast and The Fast by Moznaim Publishing Corporation, New York and Jerusalem.

[5] Heller's major halakhic work was Ma'adanei Yom Tov, a commentary to the summary of the Babylonian Talmud by Rabbi Asher ben Jehiel.

Rabbi Asher's summary was often taken by German Jews of Heller's day to be the most authoritative statement of Jewish law, even in preference to the Shulchan Aruch.

But throughout most of his life, Heller was opposed to the popularization of the kabbalah, and the use of kabbalistic reasoning in matters of Jewish law.

His Talmudic works and his sermons show that he was interested in questions of arithmetic, astronomy, and natural science.

His notes on the Giv'at haMoreh,[6] which is itself a commentary on Maimonides' work Moreh Nevuchim written by one of his teachers Joseph ben Isaac ha-Levi, prove he occupied himself with philosophy.

He praised the Me'or Einayim of Azariah dei Rossi in spite of the anathema that his master, Maharal, whom he held in great esteem, had launched against the book and its author.

In his version, the Rabbi was helped by the French general Turenne, ambassador of the court of King Louis XIV of France, after Samuel's dramatic life-saving of Turenne's wife and daughter at a park in Vienna, when they were attacked by a raging bull.

Benish Ashkenazi, one of the major characters in the novel Satan in Goray by Isaac Bashevis Singer, is a fictionalized version of Rabbi Heller.

The town leaders were disgusted by the man's lack of charity, and directed that his body be buried in a far corner of the cemetery.

This explains why Rabbi Heller, one of the greatest of Talmudic scholars, is buried in such an undistinguished section of the cemetery.